City Break

January 22, 2024December 29, 2023 Kirsten

Italian Weekend Diaries: Rome in December

After seeing my pictures from Milan, my dad was suddenly very keen on heading to Rome – so we did a little research and ended up finding a good deal for a long weekend. Here is part two of my Italian Weekend Diaries sharing my time in Rome in December, it was nice having someone to share my time in Italy with this time – and Rome is somewhere I’d definitely return to again in the future for a slower paced trip. *This trip was taken in December 2019, some things may be the same/different*

June 2, 2021December 27, 2023 Kirsten

Italian Weekend Diaries: Milan in May

Back in 2019 I visited Italy for the first time, and ended up making two trips in the year – to Milan and Rome. Both were pretty quick stops hence the title ‘Weekend Diaries’, so today I’m sharing my quick time spent in Milan back in May 2019 and I can’t believe these two years have gone by so fast!

December 16, 2020December 26, 2023 Kirsten

Lanterns & Lights – Edinburgh Zoo 2017 to 2020

For the past 4 years, including this one, winters in Edinburgh have brought some fantastic Giant Lanterns of China events to Edinburgh Zoo! Each year has had a different theming, although this years event is Christmas Lights themed rather than using lanterns – it was still a super fun event and I think could be something combined using both light effects and lanterns for events in the future. Edinburgh Zoo was one of the first zoos to have a lantern event, particularly in the UK, and these are definitely becoming very popular events now to brighten up the cold winter nights! Some of the Giant Lantern events have even won Giant Panda Global Awards too, which is a fun accolade for the events^ This post is photo-heavy, so I will write a little about each of the annual events then leave you to enjoy the pictures of some of the fantastic lantern and light displays that I’ve enjoyed over the years =)

November 25, 2020April 7, 2024 Kirsten

Magical first time at Shanghai Disneyland

When I was thinking about planning my trip to China last year I focussed on going somewhere I hadn’t been before – other than Chengdu I’ve been to Xi’an and Beijing, and while I love those cities, I need to branch out! I also need to visit some smaller places (for example Guilin is high on my priority list, it looks beautiful!), but I was thinking I should tick off the major sites first – which brought me to Shanghai. In my research Shanghai Disneyland kept coming up on travel blogs and TripAdvisor, but I was a little apprehensive about going alone. I then searched on Youtube and came across videos by thisnatasha, who has been solo to Shanghai Disneyland and really made it look super easy, so I became sold on the idea! I started my 2019 China trip in Shanghai, spending 4 days there split between Disneyland and visiting the city – it’s safe to say that the 1.5 days I spent at Shanghai Disneyland are in my absolute life highlights of things I’ve done, I just had the best time there and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since!